at the end of the lane

i took a bus back east to the coastal town of semporna where i would spend my final night before scuba diving. that was the plan anyway, i’d been cleaning my foot injury twice a day but it was still clearly not healed. i went to dress it for the night and caught the attention of a chilean guy i was sharing a hostel with. he looked over my medication, told me he was a trained vet and that everything i was using was wrong. i really did not want to hear another contradictory medical opinion, not least because it was far less optimistic than the previous assessment in sandakan. as he listed what i should be using to heal my foot, i tried to hear reasons to discount his advice, but he did sound authoritative. that was until he qualified an antibiotic recommendation with the phrase "i don't know the dosage in humans", as though he was an alien encountering our species for the first time. well, that was the dismissive tone i chose to take it with and i happily ignored all of his instructions.